Lechitic languages
The Lechitic languages include three languages spoken in Central Europe, mainly in Poland, and historically also in the eastern and northern parts of modern Germany. This language group is a branch of the larger West Slavic language family. The Lechitic group includes:
The characteristics of Lechitic languages are:
- Mutation of Proto-Slavic ě, e, ę before alveolars into a, o, ǫ.
- Continuation of Proto-Slavic dj, gě2, gi2 as d͡z, d͡zě, d͡zi.
- Lack of g → ɣ transition.
- Preservation of nasal vowels.
- the so-called fourth palatalization of velars in Polish and Kashubian
The term Lechitic derives from the most popular form of the name of the legendary forefather Lech (apparently a distorted form of *lęch).
Slavic people using those languages are also known as Lechites.
- The Encyclopædia Britannica says that "Lekhitic languages, also spelled Lechitic , group of West Slavic languages composed of Polish, Kashubian and its archaic variant Slovincian, and the extinct Polabian language. All these languages except Polish are sometimes classified as a Pomeranian subgroup. In the early Middle Ages, before their speakers had become Germanized, Pomeranian languages and dialects were spoken along the Baltic in an area extending from the lower Vistula River to the lower Oder River. Kashubian and Slovincian survived into the 20th century; there were still a considerable number of native speakers of Kashubian in Poland and Canada in the 1990s. The extinct Polabian language, which bordered the Sorbian dialects in eastern Germany, was spoken by the Slavic population of the Elbe River region until the 17th or 18th century; a dictionary and some phrases written in the language exist".[1]
Notes
- ^ [1]. Retrieved July 2003 2008
See also
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